“Don’t move,” said a voice.
Ceri screamed, trying to back away.
She heard thesnapof a switch behind her, and the room was flooded with light, bright and blinding.
Ceri whirred around, squinting, looking for whatever had pursued her, but there were only the two people from earlier: the librarian Ms. Redclaw, who was wheeling away from the light switch she’d just turned on, and the young elf she’d been yelling at, who was with Ceri on the floor.
“Now look what you’ve done,” said Ms. Redclaw.
Ceri and the elf sat in the middle of a real mess: shards of ceramic (formerly a teacup, Ceri guessed) littered over scattered books and scrolls, which were drenched with a dark liquid. The elf was picking up a metallic instrument Ceri did not recognize, bending a rod back into place with a frown.
“Are you alright?” he asked, only then glancing up at Ceri. His voice was soft with the hint of an accent she couldn’t quiteplace, his tone seemingly unconcerned, as if this sort of thing happened to him every day.
She nodded slowly, her heart still pounding in her ears. “Tea?” she asked, her voice high-pitched and breathless as she touched the cool, dark patch soaking into her brand-new shirt.
“Oh dear.” He sighed, reaching for a handkerchief. “I’m sorry; that’s going to stain. It’s coffee. Well, it was coffee. And tea. I steep my tea in coffee.”
Ceri regarded this bizarre, highly caffeinated stranger she had taken for a monster moments earlier.
As far as monsters went, she had to admit he was fairly non-threatening. He was tall—she could tell just from the proportion of his limbs even as he continued to gather up the things on the floor—and quite thin. His golden hair was disheveled by the collision and his tie was askew, but his clothes had been generally well-kept apart from their current mishap. As she watched him, he slid his wire-rimmed spectacles up his freckled nose and back into position. The color in his face seemed to drain from it as he looked through them at Ceri.
There was a version of Ceri that would have lashed out at him or mocked him for his clumsiness. It’s what her father would have done. But she could see there was nothing monstrous in the elf. And honestly, now that she saw the threat for what it was, she found the whole thing somewhat amusing. “At least it wasn’t hot,” she said.
Ceri shifted backwards to pull herself up, but the elf cried out, “Be careful,” reaching for Ceri’s hand just before she put it down on a shard of broken mug.
Ceri froze under his touch.
It had been ages since anyone had touched her so casually. Doing so was a grave offense—wait, didn’t he recognize her?
“You’re not from Loegria, are you?” said Ceri. He took her hand and helped her to her feet. She could still feel the shadow of his fingertips when they parted.
“Is it so obvious?” He laughed. “I’ve been here for a while now.”
Not long enough to recognize Loegrian royalty, clearly.
“Who’s there?” asked Ms. Redclaw. She had retrieved some kind of grabbing stick and wheeled over to help sort out the rest of the mess. “My eyes aren’t what they used to be. Are they alright?”
Ceri turned her back to Ms. Redclaw to prevent the old human from getting a better look at her.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Not a scratch on me.”
Ms. Redclaw reached around Ceri with the grabbing stick, picking up an undamaged book and sliding it back onto a shelf. “Leorias, I’ve told you time and time again. It doesn’t like you. It doesn’t want you here.”
Leorias. That must have been the elf’s name. But what did Ms. Redclaw mean by “it” not liking him?
“I know,” said Leorias. “But I need the library for my research. I’ve tried to let it know I’m not a threat.”
To let what know?
“But you are a threat. Just look what you’ve done to these books,” said Ms. Redclaw, picking up a drenched volume titledA History of Astronomical Curses.
“I’m sorry,” said Ceri. She looked between the two of them. “Are you talking about the library?”
“Are you a new student?” asked Ms. Redclaw. “You’re a bit early, aren’t you? Unless—”
Ceri could see the idea dawning on Ms. Redclaw. Perhaps Dean Whittaker had told her she was coming. “A new student, yes,” she said, hoping to interrupt Ms. Redclaw’s thoughts. “I took the wrong rail-wheeler and arrived a day early.”
They didn’t know who she was. They really didn’t know.
